


Bucky Barnes Vs. the Grocery Store

by ThanksForTheVenom



Series: Bucky Barnes Vs [4]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Dissociation, Implied/Referenced Brainwashing, Panic Attacks, Past Brainwashing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:12:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,144
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2344643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThanksForTheVenom/pseuds/ThanksForTheVenom
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Bucky goes shopping in this brave, new world.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bucky Barnes Vs. the Grocery Store

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote about panic attacks and dissociation from personal experience, not everyone will have the same experiences. Let me know if I need to tag for anything else as I think I got everything, but I'm only human.

Grocery stores are so bright in the future. The first time he goes into one, he's huddled into a hoodie with a glove covering his left hand. The fluorescent lights are so bright that he had to throw up one of his hands to block out some of the glare after the gloom of the cloudy New York day.

He remembered Johnson's Grocery down the street from Steve and his rundown single room apartment and for a moment he was thrown into a past that he could barely remember, except for these glimpses. It felt like he was gradually prying his memories out of the Winter Soldier's grasp and when he had explained it to his therapist, she had agreed that that was an apt description. The Winter Soldier had been conditioned to forget every non-essential thing that could be forgotten, but the memories were there just buried under years of brain-washing. She still warned Bucky that he may never remember everything, and that was okay too. 

He remembered Steve and most days that was enough for Bucky.

Sometimes, though, he couldn't quite tell if he was here in the present or back in the past or even if he was dreaming in between missions. He ran out of the supermarket door and threw up in the alley. As he swiped a clammy hand across his face. he smiled ruefully, and thought to himself that this was off to a great start. As he leaned against the wall, he practiced the breathing techniques that his therapist had shown him the week before. Breath in for four counts, hold for six counts, breath out for eight counts. 

Then he checked the date on his phone, repeating it to himself until the shaking had stopped. The date was still the same and cell phones had definitely not been around for most of his life, so Bucky could feel himself becoming more grounded. This was fine, he was fine.

He squared his shoulders and walked back into the supermarket, grabbing a handbasket on his way past the corral and ignoring the stares from the few people who had actually seen his retreat. "Milk, eggs, and cereal," he repeated to himself as he made his way to the back wall where a sign proclaimed MILK with EGGS right next to it. Easy enough. A notification was set on his phone to go off every ten minutes, just in case he forgot what he had been doing. 

He hadn't had an episode in three whole days, but before that he had forgotten what he was doing a lot. His therapist called in dissociation and said that it was "normal" in someone who had undergone the traumas that Bucky had, but every time it happened to him he felt just a little bit more out of control. That was until Steve had set up his old burner type phone with the notification system. It still sucked when it happened but at least he didn't have to call Steve or Sam every time it happened.

Getting the milk was easy. Steve had told him to just get whole milk so he didn't even have to look at all the percentages and he only glanced at the Soy and Almond milks. That was something that he couldn't wrap his head around yet. Natasha drank the almond kind, because she was lactose intolerant but Bucky still didn't understand how exactly they made milk out of almonds. Somethings were just going to have to remain a mystery.

Even the eggs had more kinds than the used to, but Bucky just grabbed one without reading the label, because eggs were eggs were eggs. Free range or not, organic or not, they all tasted like eggs. 

Everything was going swell, until the cereal aisle. That was were the whole thing fell apart.

Bucky had turned down aisle four with the belief that getting Steve's cereal would be as simple as getting the milk and the eggs. He was shaken from that belief when he saw just how many different kinds of cereal there actually were. Steve's kind was in a simple yellow box with the word Cheerios blazoned across the front, that was the easy part. The hard part was that at some point Cheerios had expanded from simple cereal to all sorts of different kinds. He counted at least ten, and that was just this one brand of cereal. The sheer number of choices were overwhelming, how did anyone get anything done here? 

He could feel his heart start beating faster as adrenaline was dumped into his system. His fists clenched and his pupils contracted. It felt like his lungs were being constricted in an vise. Fight or flight, but there was no one here to fight, and even Bucky couldn't fight time. Flight it was.

The handbasket dropped from his hand and the milk splashed against the baseboard when it fell. Bucky dashed out of the door, for the second time that day. As he ran out, he collided with another person, but could only gasp out an apology, the rational part of his brain knew he looked deranged but right now he was at the complete mercy of his panic. He sprinted four blocks before he finally slowed enough to turn into an alleyway. 

He collapsed next to a dumpster and sobbed for breath, retching with pain from the stitch in his side. 

After a time, when he could finally breathe without gasping and shaking with fear he heard steady footsteps following his path down the alley. Whoever it was wasn't making an effort to be quiet, and it actually sounded like they wanted him to know that they were there. He peeked around the corner of the dumpster, feeling like a child.

Sam was there, and he was patiently waiting out Bucky's panic attack while shuffling his feet to let Bucky know that Sam was there. 

Bucky cleared his throat, "What're you doing here?"

Sam laughed, "What? You think your therapist was really gonna just let you wander around New York without a tail? She called me when you guys were hashing out the details of this trip, wanted me to stay close in case you had trouble, so here I am."

Bucky just nodded, it made sense, given how against this she had been in the first place. She had tried to reason with him, but Bucky wanted to at least attempt it. Now, he wished he had never even left the Tower.

Sam helped him to his feet, and draped his arm around Bucky's shoulders, "I know it didn't go well this time, but I'm proud of you, man. You did good. You need a hug?"

Bucky nodded, because he did and Sam gave the best hugs.

"Let's get you back to the Tower and tomorrow we can try again."


End file.
